Building Rome, Brick By Brick: Setting Realist Goals for the Natural Bodybuilder
By Rob Moran

            There are many life lessons I have learned from my father. Admittedly, there are some I use much more than others but he is one of those people who is always willing to dispense advice. I can distinctly remember a conversation he had with me about the importance of setting goals. He spoke of the importance of both long and short term goals, how to set them, and where you should aim to go once you have achieved them.

            Like much of the advice you receive as a teenager, I shrugged off the lesson because I believe I already knew everything there was to know by the time I was 16. As I grow older and have more life experience under my belt, I know I could not have been more wrong. I have fully learned the importance of setting goals and achieving them. Fulfilling a goal that you have set for yourself, whether it is large or small is one of the most rewarding situations you can put yourself in.

            So how does setting goals relate to bodybuilding? A perfect example is to think back to the very reason that you started lifting weights in the first place. For me, it was to lose weight and get myself in better overall shape. That is a goal. I had a final place in my mind where I wanted to be, so I started to take the steps to get myself there.
          
            In setting a goal, I like to start with an overall or ultimate goal and work my way back from there, that way I can easily figure out the steps I need to get there. For example, let’s say I had a goal of losing 10 pounds by the day of my wedding. I know that I can safely lose 1-2 lbs of body fat without sacrificing any muscle. So if everything goes as planned, it will take me between 5-10 weeks to lose the weight I want to lose. Losing 1-2 lbs per week becomes my short-term goal and losing 10 pounds becomes my Long-term goal.

Setting Realistic Expectations

           
            One of the most important things to remember when you start is to be realistic about your goals. It is okay to shoot for the moon, but you have to put a steady plan in place before you launch that space shuttle. If you set unrealistic expectations, then you are just setting yourself up to fail. The more truthful you are with yourself, the more successful your outcome will be.

            Put yourself in the best position to accomplish your goals. If you goal is to bench 315 lbs for 6 reps, then you must start slowly and work your way up to that weight. Depending where you are starting from, this may take weeks or even months but you must have patience in order to accomplish what you want to achieve.

            It is a lot of fun to thumb through the popular bodybuilding magazines or surf the Internet to check out some of the world’s greatest physiques. While it is fantastic to admire Bodybuilding at its highest level, you must realize that these are the best of the best. Even if you follow their routines, take their supplements, wear the same clothing or even drink the same tap water that they do, your results will not be the same as theirs. Everyone has a different genetic make up and while it is perfectly okay to admire these elite athletes, it is not possible to achieve exact same results as they have.

            I have learned through the years that the more truthful you are to yourself, the easier your bodybuilding goals are to achieve. Being open and honest about where you current are and where you want to go is the first step in the right direction. It doesn’t make you selfish or a bad person for wanting to improve yourself. Writing down your goals, and keeping track of them as you go along is a great place to start. Not only will writing them down simply keep you in line, it serves as a great tool to look back upon. That way you can see how far you have come or if something doesn’t go the way you like it, you can look back and see what you need to correct.
             
 
Personalizing Your Goals

            When you’re attempting to figure out what you want to ultimately achieve, it is best to block others out of your mind and set your goals with what you want. This is all about you and what you want to achieve. This isn’t about what others want from you. There will be plenty of days along the way where you will have to decide what is important to you. It may be a choice between joining your friends after work for a drink or getting in that Back and Biceps workout that you have scheduled for that same block of time. You must remember that it comes down to the simple fact that you are accountable for your choices. If you put in the work, then results will come. That is one of the greatest and most rewarding things about bodybuilding.

            I remember when I first started getting interested in bodybuilding. I attempted to soak up as much information as possible and one of my earliest role models was Arnold Schwarenegger. I must have watched “Pumping Iron” a thousand times and I could impersonate Arnold with the best of them. I even ran out and purchased “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Modern Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding.” When I got the book home, I must have read it cover to cover and before long, I started to incorporate some of Arnold’s exact routines from the book.

            Looking back now, what I should have done is read through the book, and I should have personalized that I learned and applied it to my current goals. There is a ton of fantastic information out there, your job is to soak it all in and apply it to what you currently want to achieve. Remember, this is all about you and the areas you want to succeed in.

Next time, I will delve deeper into goal setting, where to start, how your decisions can affect people around you and dealing with not meeting your goals.